Metropolis Is The Future Of Work

For those who have not seen Metropolis, work in the future is presented as an individual standing in front of a dial and moving two hands to connect the dots indicated by blinking lights. This appears laughable these days as we can clearly see that we would build a machine to automate even that task.

But consider the "Games With A Purpose" movement. A typical game puts two humans in competition to categorize something, like an image of a puppy. At this time, we cannot devise a program that will reliably label images in a way that humans would find useful. So by turning this into a game we can extract these labels as byproduct of humans playing the game.

This dynamic has a precedent, hackers have set up adult themed sites where access is gained by solving CAPTCHA logins. The CAPTCHA logins are used on sites which are trying to prevent automated access.

In both cases the thing which only the human can do is extracted and presented in isolation. All the other work has been automated. It is important to point out that in both cases there is "pay", in the one it is access to a game, in the other it is the adult material.

Now as to Metropolis, of course they got the minor detail wrong, which is the clock dial and the moving of the two arms in response to blinking lights. But as a metaphor it is dead on. Labeling images disembodied from their context. Solving CAPTCHA. The work is dull and lifeless. But what Metropolis tried to capture, it is work that requires the essential human.